Five Hundred Words Per Day

Five hundred words per day. I found this Facebook group called "My 500 Words". It's a closed group that's designed to help writers become better and more disciplined at their craft. It's closed so you have to ask permission from the group administrator to join. It's stated purpose and goal, to quote, is:

My 500 Words is a 31-day challenge designed to help you develop a daily writing habit and become a better writer.

You're supposed to write your five hundred words and then post that you've done it on the My 500 Words Facebook page, so you can get encouragement from other writers participating in the project as well. You can write about anything you want, and you're not supposed to edit it as you write. You're just supposed to let the words flow.

So here I am, writing my first five hundred words, and, while it's taking me a very long time to write them, at least I'm working at it. It usually does take me a long time to produce a blog post, and I'm wondering if that's part of the reason why it's difficult for me to write.

I went to a really cool thing at church tonight. It was called "Comedy and the Constitution", and it was definitely hilariously funny, while being very serious at the same time.

And then I wrote this not-very-good poem:

           Five Hundred Words

Words and letters spilling out
Tumbling through the littered spout
Onto the paper, must needs make sense
Though sense is but a wall to one so dense. 

So scrivening onward, pushing pen to write,
Word upon word, sense will blight
But all else is dimmed save numbered lines
And thus are saved by five hundred times.

And on I write in salad's stead
Or steely march of soldiers' tread,
Sense or nonsense, makes no mind.
Just pump out words till all is fine.

So thus far it adds up to about 290 words, and by writing this sentence I'm at 306 words. I think I'll end it here. I'm tired. I think I'm doing pretty good even getting this far, which puts me right at 358 words. It probably seems kind of silly focusing so much on numbers of words, but I'm trying to meet this challenge, without getting too legalistic about it.